The Leopard's Spots

The Leopard's Spots: A Romance of the White Man's Burden - 1865-1900
First edition cover
Author Thomas Dixon
Illustrator C. D. Williams
Country United States
Language English
Genre Novel
Publisher Doubleday, Page & Co.
Publication date
1902
Media type Print
OCLC 12852953

The Leopard's Spots is the first novel of Thomas Dixon's Ku Klux Klan trilogy that included The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan and The Traitor.[1] In the novel Dixon offers an account of Reconstruction in which he portrays a former slave driver, Northern carpetbaggers, and emancipated slaves as the villains; and heroes as members of the Ku Klux Klan. The novel served as one of the sources for D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation.

The title refers to a passage from the Biblical Book of Jeremiah 13:23 "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil" (KJV). The title conveyed the idea that as leopards could not change their spots, people of African origin could not change their inherently corrupt character.

Characters

Charles Gaston A man who dreams of making it to the Governor's Mansion
Sallie Worth A daughter of the old-fashioned South
Gen. Daniel Worth Sallie Worth's father
Mrs. Worth Sallie's mother
The Rev. John Durham A preacher who threw his life away
Tom Camp A Confederate soldier
Flora Tom's daughter
Simon Legree Ex-slave driver and Reconstruction leader
Allan Mcleod A scalawag (Union sympathizer)
Everett Lowell Member of Congress from Boston
Helen Lowell Everett's daughter
Major Stuart Dameron Head of the Ku Klux Klan
Hose Norman poor white man
Hon. Tim Shelby Political Boss
George Harris, Jr An educated Negro
Leonidas

References

Further reading

  • Bloomfield, Maxwell. "Dixon's "The Leopard's Spots": A Study in Popular Racism," American Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 3 (Autumn, 1964), pp. 387–401 in JSTOR
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